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jHemotr of tf)e iLtfe 



OF THE 



RT. REV. WILLIAM MEADE, D.D. 



BY 



PHILIP SLAUGHTER, D.D. 



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MEMOIR OF THE LIFE 



OF THE 



RT. REV. WILLIAM MEADE, D.D., 

Btsfjop of tjje Protestant lEpiscopat Cjjurrij of tfje 
©focese of Utrgtma. 



BY 

PHILIP SLAUGHTER, D.D. 

HISTORIOGRAPHER OF THE DIOCESE. 




! 14*1885.) 



CAMBRIDGE: 
JOHN WILSON AND SON. 

(Hntbersttg ^ress, 
1885. 



s 



- A«8 



Reprinted, with additions, by permission of the New England His- 
toric Genealogical Society, from Volume IV. or the "Memorial 
Biographies." 



Copyright, 1885, 
By the New England Historic Genealogical Society. 



MEMOIR. 



We live in a transition age. Primitive beliefs are dis- 
integrating and combining into new forms, preparatory, 
we are told, to a higher life. The present age seems to 
look upon itself with as much complacency, and upon the 
past with as much contempt, as if it had solved the prob- 
lem of spontaneous generation, which has so long baffled 
the biologists ; or as if, like Love in Aristophanes, " it 
had been hatched from the egg of Night," and all of a 
sudden spread its bright wings over primeval darkness. 
The incoming flood threatens to sweep away the old land- 
marks, and obliterate the footsteps of the fathers. As our 
ancestors in England and in Virginia used, at short inter- 
vals, to " perambulate " in formal processions their plan- 
tations and parishes to restore the fallen landmarks and 
renew the fading inscriptions upon the line-trees, so it 
seems to some a pious office to revive the memory of the 
historical heroes who " blazed " the way in the wilderness 
for the churches and commonwealths to come, and sowed 
the seeds of the harvest which we are gathering into our 
garners. The canonizing of saints would be a good thing, 
if only we had Falstaffs instinct to discern the true 
prince. Principal Shairp, of Edinburgh, thinks that the 
universal church should have a catena of the lives of the 
best men of each age as the strongest of external evi- 
dences, exhibiting Christianity not as a system of doc- 
trines so much as a power of life. Such a man was William 



Meade, one among the last of those old Virginians, of 
whom only a few yet linger in the horizon, as if loth 
to part with the past, and waiting to see the future 
come. 

In view of the fact that Bishop Meade began an auto- 
biography to prevent too partial friends from heaping 
" heightened eulogies " upon him, and of his dying dec- 
laration that he repudiated all commendation of himself 
as " inconsistent with his consciousness of sin," one who 
respects his wishes dare not desecrate his memory with 
indiscriminating praise. And yet if the theory of the great 
Hero-Worshipper be true, that a genuine sincerity is the 
foundation of heroic character ; and that other elements 
of it are a clear, deep-seeing eye, a large heart, faith in 
the Invisible, a high disdain of all cant and shams, a 
lofty ideal, and the courage to dare and do, and if need 
be to die, for its realization, — then the naked truth of 
history can but enroll his name among those heroic 
characters whose memory a grateful posterity will not 
willingly let die. 

As to his consciousness of sin, it has been well said 
that " the greatest of all sin is to be conscious of none." 
The "nulla pallescere culpa" is the fruit of pagan, not 
of Christian culture, whose standards of morality are as 
wide asunder as the poles. Bishop Meade did not judge 
himself by the law of honor, that is, "What will men 
say? " but he lived as if he were conscious that the great 
Task-master's eye was upon him. This is the key which 
unlocks the secret of his self-denying and laborious life, 
making it a glorious warfare, crowned with the victor's 
wreath, instead of a series of Quixotic tilts against imagi- 
nary ghosts and veritable windmills. 

It is a significant fact that a New England Historical 
Society should wish, after the lapse of many }^ears, to 
place Bishop Meade's portrait in its gallery of historical 
pictures. And yet, when we call to mind the relations 



between Bishops Griswold and Eastburn and the Bishop 
of Virginia, and the contributions of the latter to his- 
tory, nothing could be more fitting and graceful than this 
tribute. 1 It is in response to this call that this outline of 
Bishop Meade's life is sketched. The limits prescribed 
are too small for a rounded biography. To fill up this 
outline the reader must consult the documents in Bishop 
John's memorial, the journals of Convention, and the 
historical writings of Dr. Hawks. 

A member of the family, who had a taste for geneal- 
ogy, traced Bishop Meade's ancestry to Thomas Crom- 
well, a blacksmith of Putney, who was the father of 
Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, whom Henry VIII. ca- 
ressed as long as that statesman was useful to him, and 
then beheaded. The genealogist thought that this Earl 
was the uncle of Oliver Cromwell. But he was probably 
mistaken, as when a Romish Bishop of Gloucester courted 
Oliver's favor by dedicating a book to him, and by claim- 
ing a common descent from Lord Cromwell, Oliver replied 
with warmth, " The Earl of Essex is in no degree related 
to me ! " The root of the family in America was Andrew 
Meade, a Roman Catholic, who came to New York late 
in the eighteenth century, and married Mary Latham, 
a Quaker of Flushing, — "a heterogeneous kind of 
union," said Mr. Meade, " less obnoxious to nature than 
to bigotry." Those who believe in the transmission of 
hereditary traits by descent may well think that it would 
be quite in the course of nature for the union of these 
extremes to issue in that evangelical churchmanship of 
which Bishop Meade was so pronounced a type. Andrew 
Meade removed with his w r ife to Nansemond County, 
Virginia, where he amassed a handsome fortune, and 
built a fine house with an avenue of trees leading to 

1 When Bishop Meade, while at Bishop Griswold's house, learned that the gentle 
footsteps which he heard every morning at his door were those of his host cleaning 
his hoots, he said that, while mortified at this menial office at such hands, he looked 
back to it as an act of the most touching hospitality he had ever received. 



6 

the church at Suffolk. He became a vestryman, and 
must, therefore, have abjured his allegiance to the Roman 
Church, that having been at that time a condition prece- 
dent to being a vestryman. He was known as honest 
Andrew. His son David married Susanna, a daughter of 
Governor Everard, of North Carolina, and grand-daughter 
of Richard Kidder, Bishop of Bath and Wells. Hence 
the names Everard and Kidder, so common in the family 
to this day. 

The issue of David and Susanna (Everard) Meade were 
five sons and two daughters. One of the daughters mar- 
ried Richard Randolph, of Curies, a descendant of the 
Princess Pocahontas. The three elder sons were sent to 
Harrow, England, and put under the care of Dr. Thack- 
ery, principal of the school, and Archdeacon of Surrey, 
having for school-fellows Sir William Jones, Sir Joseph 
Banks, and Dr. Parr. Richard K. Meade, the Bishop's 
father, witnessed the execution of the unfortunate Dr. 
Dodd, who sometimes preached to the boys, as after- 
wards, when aid to Washington, he witnessed the execu- 
tion of Major Andre, of which he had official charge. 
The sad sight moved him to tears, as Washington is said 
to have wept when he signed the death-warrant. 

After returning to America, Richard K. Meade, in his 
nineteenth year, married Jane, daughter of Richard Ran- 
dolph, of Curies, the aunt of John, of Roanoke, who always 
called him Uncle Kidder. Richard Kidder was of the party 
who daringly removed the arms from Governor Dunmore's 
palace, and lodged them in the magazine at Williamsburg. 
He was in the battle of the Great Bridge, and illustrated 
the persistency which his son inherited, by saying, " I'll 
see this matter out or die ! " He sold his fine estate of 
Coggins Point on James River ; distributed all but three 
thousand dollars of the proceeds among his relatives ; and 
through a friend invested this sum in the rich lands of 
the valley of Virginia, which proved to be such a for- 



tunate speculation that he called it, when it became 
his home after the war, Lucky Hit. He was taken into 
Washington's family as one of his aids ; and he used to 
say that Hamilton did the headwork of Washington's 
staff, and he the riding. When Washington, at the close 
of the war, took leave of his aids, he said to Hamil- 
ton, " You must go to the Bar, which you can reach in 
six months ; " and to Colonel Meade, " Friend Dick," as 
he familiarly called him, " you must go to your planta- 
tion ; you will make a good farmer, and an honest fore- 
man of the grand jury." This prediction was literally 
fulfilled. Colonel Meade's teacher at Harrow said if he 
did not become a great scholar, he would be something 
better, — " vir probus." When Colonel Meade some years 
later visited Mount Yernon, he and Washington met at 
a pair of draw-bars, when both dismounting, Washington 
insisted that as host it was his privilege to take down the 
bars ; to which Colonel Meade replied, " Well, General, I 
will be your aid still ! " 

Colonel R. K. Meade, born July 14, 1746, married 
December 10, 1780, Mrs. Mary Randolph, widow of 
William Randolph of Chatsworth, born November 9, 1753. 
She w r as a daughter of Benjamin Grymes, lineal descend- 
ant of Lieutenant- Colon el Grymes of Cromwell's army, 
and his wife, Miss Fitzhugh of Chatham. Colonel Meade 
had by his first wife no issue that survived her. By 
his second wife he had four daughters and four sons. 
Colonel Meade, who was expert with mechanical tools, 
aided in building a dwelling of logs, with two rooms, on 
his plantation, Lucky Hit, in Frederick County ; and here, 
on the eleventh of November, 1789, William, the future 
bishop of Virginia, was born. The days of his boyhood 
were passed under the wings of his mother, one of those 
virtuous women, whose price is far above rubies, "who 
opened their mouths with wisdom, and on whose lips was 
the law of kindness;" striving to realize Solomon's 



8 

beautiful ideal of a housewife, "whose children rise up and 
call her blessed." From her he received the rudiments 
of his education, which in those days included instruction 
in the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. 

From his tenth to his seventeenth year he was under the 
tuition of the Bev. Mr. Wiley, who taught a classical school 
at Carter Hall, the seat of Nathaniel Burwell, Esq. Mr. 
Wiley, being a fine scholar, was afterwards professor of 
languages in St. John's College, at Annapolis, Maryland. 
Major Thomas Ambler, one of William's school-fellows, 
who survived him, described William as a warm-hearted, 
spirited boy, hardy and athletic, devoted to the sports 
of the field, forest, and stream, little caring for hat or 
shoes. At Carter Hall there was a garden enclosed with 
a high wall. In it was forbidden fruit, pleasant to the 
eyes which saw it, nodding, as it were, upon the topmost 
boughs. The temptation was irresistible. It was a rep- 
etition of the old story, minus "the old boy," whose sub- 
tle insinuations were not needed to whet the appetites 
of the young boys. They held a council of war, and 
Willie, who to his dying day had a weakness for fruit, 
volunteered to scale the wall. He succeeded ; and as he 
climbed the pear-tree, Colonel Burwell appeared upon 
the scene. The instruments of discipline for such offences 
in those days was a negro man in front, and a keen 
hickory in the rear. Colonel Burwell was magnanimous ; 
only telling Willie to eat as many pears as he could, but 
not to carry any to the other hoys, who had not the 
pluck to incur the peril, and must not share in the spoils. 
Once in playtime he ran to a stream near the play- 
ground, and succeeded, not in capturing, but in hanging 
an eel. When he got back the school was in, but he was 
so full of his exploit that he could not refrain from 
whispering it to boy after boy. Mr. Wiley overhearing 
the whisper, fastened a paper on Willie's back, on which 
was written in large letters, " William Meade hung an 



eel." This adventure of the boy was not prophetic of the 
man, who seldom hung anything that he did not hold. 

On November 6, 1806, William Meade, with William 
H. Fitzhugh, matriculated in Nassau Hall, Princeton, 
New Jersey. He became a hard student, reading ten 
hours a day, and regretting that he could not, on account 
of weak eyes, give fourteen hours of the twenty-four to 
study. His letters to his kinsfolk rang with a joyous 
tone, and overflowed with humor, in which there lurked 
a vein of mischief. He looked back to the dancing 
school and to his fair partners as to his golden age. In 
1807 his studies were suddenly arrested by the outbreak 
of a great rebellion, when he and one hundred and 
fifty of his fellows were dismissed for refusing, upon a 
peremptory demand, to take their names from a paper 
offensive to the Faculty. Here his ministering angel in- 
terposed, and, by command of his mother, he made proper 
acknowledgments, and was reinstated, and thus saved 
from a secular life. This incident calls to mind an epi- 
taph upon a tomb on Mount Parnassus, reared by a son 
to his mother, and inscribed with the words : " Rest in 
peace, my mother ! Your son will always obey you." 
Renewing his studies, he was graduated at the Com- 
mencement in 1808, sharing the first honor with two 
others, adjudged of equal merit. The Cliosophic Society, 
on September 3, 1808, addressed to him a letter of con- 
gratulation, expressing their delight at the triumph of 
one of their members, and conferring upon him their 
diploma, the highest reward of distinguished merit that 
Cliosophians give. The Valedictory, a recognition of 
superior scholarship and excellence as a speaker, was 
assigned to him. His collegiate career was gracefully 
crowned by the following letter, without date, addressed 
by the President to his mother : — 

Madam, — I have the pleasure to inform you that your son 
has just finished his course of college studies with great credit 

2 



10 

to himself. His talents, his application, his principles and 
morals, may justly afford a virtuous and affectionate parent the 
purest consolation. It will not be long, I hope, before you 
embrace a son worthy of you. With the greatest respect and 
best wishes for your happiness, I am, Madam, 

Your obedient and humble servant, 

Samuel Smith. 

After his graduation he spent some months in rest and 
recreation at home, which he improved by contracting 
an engagement to be married. While at college he had 
made up his mind to study for the ministry, of which he 
had never thought until it was suggested by his mother 
and sister, Mrs. Page. As there were no theological semi- 
naries then, the alternatives were to return to Princeton 
as a resident graduate, or to become an inmate of some 
minister's family. His cousin, Mrs. Custis, fearing lest 
he had not an adequate sense of the responsibilities of the 
ministry, and was entering it blindfold, had proposed that 
he should pursue his studies under the direction of that 
gentle shepherd, the Rev. Walter Addison of Maryland, 
and be inspired by his humble example. Accordingly, 
in November, 1808, the young postulant entered the 
private oratory of the devout Mr. Addison. 

As religion was the primary thing in Bishop Meade, 
the ruling force which determined his character and 
career, it is interesting to trace its genesis, from its first 
visible germ in the nursery through the several stages 
of its growth, until it flowered into a distinct conscious- 
ness that he "had passed from death unto life." The 
seed had been planted in the virgin soil of his infant 
heart, and its first germinations had been watched by the 
loving eye, watered by the tears, and tended by the 
skilled hand of his mother, who habitually looked to God 
" to give the increase." He did not remember a time 
when he did not " think himself a subject of the opera- 
tions of the Holy Spirit." When he was transplanted 



11 

to the School and the College he found himself in a 
new atmosphere, and with a different environment. His 
mother was not there to call him to prayer, and pray 
with him. Boys have their law of honor, which does 
not often coincide with the law of God. What the boys 
think and say and do is the law of their miniature repub- 
lics. Under these influences his spiritual growth was 
dwarfed, if not arrested. But happily there were in- 
fluences streaming upon him, through letters from his 
mother and sister, and that other beautiful soul, Mrs. 
G. Washington Custis of Arlington, whose perennial 
piety diffused its fragrance in the gay atmosphere of her 
elegant home, like that peculiar jessamine which blooms 
in the open air amid the snows of winter. These in- 
fluences touched him at the turning points of his life, 
as when his mother's authority sent him back to college, 
and again suggested to him the thought of studying for 
the ministry, when the Bar was the goal at which he 
aimed. Once more Mrs. Custis was the instrument of 
withdrawing him from college, when she feared he was 
going " blindfold " into the ministry, and retiring him to 
the private oratory of Mr. Addison, where he might reap 

" The harvest of the quiet eye 
That broods and sleeps on his own heart." 

It may not be here amiss to note the religious books 
which left their impress upon him. Books of the evan- 
gelical type were rare in those days. Blair's sermons 
were the fashion. In the words of that prince of Vir- 
ginian preachers, Devereux Jarratt, the people were told 
from the pulpit " to walk in the primrose paths of a 
sublime morality, instead of 4 Behold the Lamb of God, 
who taketh away the sins of the world.' " Mr. Meade 
speaks of having read with advantage, in his sixteenth 
year, the Essays of Vicesimus Knox and the writings 
of Addison, — books which, however adapted to improve 
one's tastes and morals, had not fervor enough to stem 



12 

the tide of worldliness and incoming infidelity. While 
he read devoutly such books as he took with him to 
Princeton, he names only one, Young's Night Thoughts, 
a favorite of his mother, — a book which Bulwer pro- 
nounced one of the greatest poems in the language. 
At Mr. Addison's, books of another type were put into 
his hands. Of these he only mentions two, Soame Jen- 
yns on Internal Evidences of Christianity, and Wilber- 
force's Practical View. It was after reading the former, 
he says, that he first got a clear and satisfactory view 
of the necessity and reasonableness of the propitiation 
for sin by our Blessed Lord. " I shall never forget," he 
adds, "the time, the instrument, and the happy effect; 
and how I rose once and again from my bed to give 
thanks to God for it." And of Wilberforce's book he 
said, " It gave a direction and color to my whole life." 
It is worth remembering that Wilberforce, the idol of 
society, and one of the stars in that constellation of 
statesmen who illuminated the British Senate in the 
time of Pitt, and who almost single-handed slew the 
gigantic slave trade, should have written a book which 
revolutionized religion in the higher and middle classes ; 
which so edified the great Burke in his last days, that 
he thanked the author for having written it, — a book of 
which seventy-five thousand copies were printed in six 
months, and whose influence was diffused over the Conti- 
nent by its translation into the French, Italian, Spanish, 
German, and Dutch tongues. It is curious that Wilber- 
force derived his religious impulse from his aunt, who 
got hers from Whitefield ; and thus is brought to light 
a chain connecting two centuries and two continents, 
through an influence flowing from George Whitefield to 
William Meade, the future Bishop of Yirginia. 

Mr. Meade's eyes again failing, he returned home, and 
after resting them, repaired to Princeton in the summer 
of 1809 to pursue his theological studies, as a resident 



13 

graduate. Soon after reaching Princeton he was seized 
by a fever, which was nigh fatal. When sufficiently re- 
covered, he went home. On the thirty-first of January, 
1810, he married Mary, daughter of Philip Nelson of Fred- 
erick County, and granddaughter of Governor Nelson of 
Yorktown. His mother gave him a farm without a house, 
and he went regularly to work, helping to burn the lime, 
build the house, plough the first field, and sow the seed, 
which he continued to do for many years. He resolved 
in the outset to incur no debt, and adhering to this reso- 
lution, was able to keep his land until it had so risen in 
value, as to enable him to give his children as much as he 
desired they should have to begin life with, while many 
of his friends sacrificed their lands rather than economize 
labor and style of living. 

The necessary manual labor incident to this period of 
his life, while it increased his bodily strength, interfered 
seriously with his theological studies. Thus, he says, 
" The weakness of my eyes, my sickness at Princeton, 
my early marriage, and consequent necessity of manual 
labor, prevented even a moderate share of theological 
preparation for the ministry." It was this experience, 
doubtless, which led him in his lectures to students on 
Pastoral Theology, to warn them against precipitating 
themselves into matrimony. 

After receiving from Bishop Madison the resolution of 
some doubts, suggested by an old canon, about the in- 
compatibility of servile labor with the ministry, Mr. 
Meade made arrangements for ordination. Williamsburg, 
the Episcopal see of Virginia, was distant two hundred 
miles from Mountain View, his home in the valley, west 
of the Blue Eidge. It was just past midwinter ; it was 
very cold, and the ground was covered with snow ; but 
nothing daunted, the young cavalier-candidate for orders, 
in his twenty-first year, mounted his horse, and over 
country roads and unbridged rivers wended his weary 



14 

way to Williamsburg, and presented himself in a full suit 
of " homespun " to the bishop of the diocese. Bishop 
Madison and Dr. Bracken examined him before breakfast. 
On their way to church they met the students with 
dogs and guns, harking to the chase. It was the twenty- 
fourth of February, 1811, and even in that climate the 
citizens were filling their ice-houses. The church was 
cheerless. " Through broken panes the chill winds blew." 
The congregation consisted of fifteen gentlemen and three 
ladies, chiefly relatives of Mr. Meade. There was no ordi- 
nation sermon. When the ordination and communion 
offices were over, the newly made deacon was " put into 
the pulpit to preach." The scene was so sad, that Mr. 
Meade wondered, says Mrs. Nelson, of York, if it was em- 
blematic of his ministry. The following Sunday he spent 
in Kichmond, on his way home. The only church in the 
city, Old St. John's, on the Hill, was never open except on 
communion occasions. The only services were held in a 
room in the capitol, where Dr. Buchanan, Episcopal, and 
Dr. Blair, Presbyterian, the two parsons, whose friendship 
has become historical, officiated on alternate Sundays. Mr. 
Meade pursued his journey home over the same road, 
which somewhat later he travelled from the convention 
composed of seven ministers, which sat in a committee 
room at the capitol ; and having just read Scott's Lay of 
the Last Minstrel, he found himself reciting, " Lost, lost, 
lost ! " in view of the state of the Church. 

Eeaching home, he began his ministry, as assistant to 
Dr. Belmaine, rector of Frederick Parish, in Frederick 
County, in which were two churches, one at Winchester, 
where Dr. Belmaine lived, and the Stone Chapel about 
seven miles from Mountain View. 

There has been much confusion of dates and facts about 
Frederick Parish during Mr. Meade's incumbency. The 
truth is, Mr. Meade was assistant to Dr. Belmaine until 
the death of the latter in 1821. He thus became rector, 



15 

with Robertson, and afterwards Jackson, as assistants at 
Winchester, till 1827, when a new parish was cut off from 
Frederick, called Frederick Parish, Winchester, leaving 
only the Stone Chapel and WicklifTe Church in old Frede- 
rick Parish. Mr. Jones preached at Wickliffe, and Mr. 
Meade at the Stone Chapel, till Wickliffe was made a new 
parish in 1834. 

Before the close of the first year of his ministry, an 
urgent call came from Christ Church, Alexandria, beseech- 
ing him to come to the help of a flock scattered by the 
unfaithfulness of previous pastors. He consented to go 
for a time, reserving the privilege of keeping up oc- 
casional services in his parish at home. In the vestry- 
book of Christ Church is the following entry : " Nov. 7, 
1811. Mr. Meade having agreed to accept the same, the 
Vestry proceeded to induct him as rector of the parish." 
Here Mr. Meade first appears as a reformer. A beardless 
youth bearded the lions to their faces, and brought them 
to the Church's terms. He found a dumb congregation, 
with only a few feeble responses. He taught the little 
children to cry aloud in the Temple, and soon the old 
church resounded with the liturgy. Baptisms were made 
the occasions of family festivities on " christening cakes, 
etc."; and soon there was a general presentation of chil- 
dren in the church. Yestry-mee tings had been dinner- 
parties ; and after attending one he changed all that. His 
youth, zeal, doctrine, and musical voice attracted mem- 
bers of Congress to Christ Church, such as the unique 
John Randolph of Roanoke, and Milner — afterwards the 
Rev. Dr. Milner, whose praise was in all the churches. 
Francis S. Key, too, author of the u Star-spangled Banner " 
and of several religious hymns, began here that intimacy 
with Mr. Meade, which made him an earnest co-worker. 
Dr. Milner also probably received an impression, which 
gave direction to his life and a cast to his creed. 

The Rev. Dr. Wilmer came to Alexandria, as rector 



16 

of St. Paul's, during Mr. Meade's incumbency of Christ 
Church. The present writer, in his address at the semi- 
centenary of the Seminary in 1873, has described the 
prominent part which this accomplished divine played in 
the revival of the Church in Virginia. It must suffice to 
say now that he and Mr. Meade set the ball in motion, 
which led to the election, in May, 1814, of the Rev. R. 
Channing Moore, D.D., to the episcopate of Virginia. 
Dr. Wilmer preached the Convention Sermon on that 
occasion, in which he said, " We want a bishop who has 
passed through the pangs of the new birth, and whose 
great theme shall be Christ crucified." Dr. Wilmer 
spoke like a son at the bedside of a dying mother, and, 
looking wistfully in her eyes for every sign of life, he 
exclaimed, " The torpor in which our Church lies may 
not be the sleep of death, but the crisis of the disease. 
Leaders of the armies of the living God," he cries, "arise, 
and let us redeem our honor and the honor of our ven- 
erable Church. The eyes of Virginia are fixed upon us, 
and the issues of life and death hang upon our delibera- 
ations. If we succeed, we shall have a memorial more 
grateful than stars and laurels, or than to be embalmed 
in a nation's tears." Never was a man fitter for such an 
exigency than Bishop Moore, " the old man eloquent," 
whose heart was a well of emotion. His gray hairs and 
trembling hands, his eyes overflowing with tears, and his 
tender appeals falling in musical cadences from his lips, 
united in producing a sensation hitherto unparalleled in 
Virginia. The effect was magnetic. As he apostro- 
phized the old churches in ruins, his plaints were like the 
lamentations of Jeremiah, and whole congregations were 
melted to tears. 

The time of Mr. Meade's returning to Frederick has 
never been definitely fixed in print by himself, or by his 
annalists. It is merely said to have been " in the spring, 
or after eighteen months." The vestry-book, under date 



17 

of March 25, 1813, says, " Mr. Meade's connection is about 
to be dissolved." As he, in the following May, repre- 
sented Frederick in Convention, his leaving Alexandria 
must have been between the twenty-fifth of March and 
the twenty-fifth of May. Bishop Meade says in his Old 
Churches, "I went to Alexandria in October;" and in 
another place, he says he was in Alexandria about eigh- 
teen months. This, with the entry in the vestry-book, 
seems to point to the first of April as the exact date. 
He visited Alexandria in October, but was inducted on 
the seventh of November. 

Mr. Meade instituted reforms in Frederick like to 
those put in practice at Alexandria. He established 
Sunday Schools, and catechetical classes; societies for 
ministerial education, for missions, for distribution of 
Bibles, books, and tracts, and for African colonization. 
He preached to the negroes on fifteen plantations, 
meeting them at breakfast-time at one place, and at 
dinner-time at the next ; their masters consenting, at 
his instance, to this interruption in their daily labors. In 
one year, he reported the baptism of forty-eight colored 
children. By a bold stroke he silenced the clamor 
against " a hireling clergy," by firmly refusing any pe- 
cuniary compensation for his ministerial work. Like 
Saint Paul he did not repudiate the right of a minister of 
the gospel " to live of the gospel ; " but, like Saint Paul, 
he resolved that the gospel from his lips should be " free 
of charge," and that his own hands should minister to his 
necessities. His parish, instead of being the only scene 
of his labors, was but the centre of a wide region, com- 
prehending many waste places, which soon became 
fruitful, his own parish being so well trained as to be 
content with lay-services in his absence. 

Mr. Meade was ordained presbyter in Alexandria, 
on the tenth of January, 1814, by Bishop Claggett, who 
put to him some hard questions in the metaphysics of 

3 



18 

Divinity, and requested him to give, in the Latin tongue, 
an account of his faith. By request of the Convention, 
Mr. Meade preached, May, 1814, at the opening of the 
Monumental Church in Richmond, which was built on 
the site of a theatre which had been burned, in which 
the Governor and many of the leading citizens lost their 
lives. John Kandolph, in a letter to Francis S. Key, says : 
— " Meade will preach to-morrow in the new church. 
All classes are eager to hear him. What an occasion for 
a man who would not sink under it ! The congrega- 
tion would like to have him establish himself here. No 
man could be more generally revered than he is." 
" Sunday evening," Mr. Randolph adds, " Meade ex- 
plained why he should not allude to the theatre, and 
then gave a most excellent sermon on the pleasures of a 
true Christian life. He goes to Hanover, thirty-five miles, 
to preach at night. I fear he will wear himself out." 

His life was crowded with events and labors of love. 
Our limited space will only allow us to run rapidly over 
the salient points. We cannot tell the story of the 
Theological Seminary, from its first conception in the 
mind of Dr. Augustine Smith in 1815 ; its feeble birth 
and collapse at William and Mary ; its revival under the 
inspiration of William Wilmer, William Meade, William 
Hawley, and Francis S. Key, in Dr. Henderson's house in 
Georgetown, in 1818; its manipulation by the Convention ; 
its transfer to Alexandria; its development there under 
the auspices of Drs. Keith, Wilmer, and Norris, to its 
culmination on Seminary Hill, — a lamp whose light 
cannot be hid. Like the light of the sun it circled the 
earth. Athens, eye of Greece, " lumen totius Graeciae," 
saw it and was glad ; and has since dropped bitter tears 
at the tomb of the veteran missionary, Dr. Hill, and of his 
equally devoted wife, whose light has been shining for 
half a century on the ruins of human hearts, more sub- 
lime than the ruins of the Acropolis. Lighthouses have 



19 

been kindled along the western coast of Africa, and the 
martyrs sleep under her palm-trees. The bodies of 
Bishop Boone and of Parker are buried within the walls 
of the Celestial Empire ; and from their dust the mission 
may rise in grander proportions, as the oaks of the forest 
strike their roots deeper and rise to a higher vantage- 
ground over the mouldering remains of their predeces- 
sors. The Right Reverend Channing Moore Williams 
and his aids yet live " to lighten " the Gentiles of Japan. 
The Seminary has sent into the domestic and foreign 
fields seven hundred and fifty sons, who have preached 
the gospel from Maine to Louisiana, and from Virginia to 
California and the Indian Territory ; of whom, more than 
one hundred have officiated or are now ministering in 
Virginia. Of the alumni there have been twelve bishops, 
eight in the domestic and four in the foreign field. 

Nor can I set forth in detail the account of the edu- 
cation society of which Dr. Wilmer, the first president, 
and Mr. Meade were the main pillars, and whose auxili- 
aries, rising like springs in the several parishes, poured 
their rivulets into the common reservoir which watered 
the Seminary. One word must be said for the commis- 
sary-general, Mr. C. F. Lee, by whose masterly manage- 
ment the barrel of meal was never wasted, nor did " the 
cruse of oil fail." 

As to discipline in the diocese, Mr. Meade had from 
the beginning preached a crusade against horse-racing, 
card-playing, the theatre, and such like fashionable 
amusements, as inconsistent with a Christian profession ; 
following it up with private admonitions in person, and 
by reasonings, remonstrance, affectionate entreaties, and 
by letters unknown to all but himself and the persons 
addressed. He knew the State well, and had seen the 
desolation wrought in families, and in society. He enu- 
merated several counties, in which costly mansions, where 
an elegant hospitality had been dispensed, had lapsed into 



20 

the hands of strangers, and broad acres, which had waved 
with golden grain, were now overgrown with cedar and 
pine, the evergreen memorials of Virginia's prodigal sons. 
And he never ceased this crusade until, after angry oppo- 
sition in many conventions, his views were embodied in 
the nineteenth canon of discipline, and in the canon dis- 
qualifying non-communicants for being deputies in con- 
vention. Family prayer, too, that thermometer of the 
religious temperature of the heads of houses, was revived 
by a form, which he had culled from the works of Bishop 
Wilson, a copy of which he found in the library at Ar- 
lington, and which had been presented to General 
Washington by a son of that bishop. This prayer, 
printed at his own expense, he sowed broadcast over 
the diocese, along with the Prayer-book and tracts, which 
were issued by the Virginia Publication Society, of which 
Dr. Wilmer was the originator and president. 

In 1819 Mr. Meade went to Georgia, as " Commis- 
sioner " for the release of recaptured Africans who were 
about to be sold; and succeeded in his mission. In going 
to and returning from the South, he was active in estab- 
lishing auxiliaries to the American Colonization Society, 
and prosecuted his mission through the Middle to the 
New England States. He did not believe the holding of 
slaves, in the circumstances of the South, to be a sin ; but 
he maintained it to be the paramount duty of masters to 
give their negroes religious instruction. He emancipated 
his own slaves ; but this experiment proved so disastrous 
to the negroes that he ceased to encourage it. In com- 
mon with Jefferson, Monroe, and most of the leading 
statesmen of Virginia, he looked to Liberia as the door 
opened by Providence through which the negroes might 
gradually pass to their own country. The solution of the 
problem of Africa in America was America in Africa, — 
in the language of Governor Wise, " The black mission- 
ary for black Africa." 



21 

In 1826 he was recommended as assistant bishop of 
Pennsylvania; but some complications having arisen, 
which we have not space to explain, he in the interest 
of peace, peremptorily, against the protestations of his 
friends, withdrew his name, declaring that he would not 
accept the office if tendered. In 1827 William and Mary 
College conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of 
Divinity. In 1828 Bishop Moore, in view of his age 
and infirmities, asked for an assistant. On the twenty- 
third of May Mr. Meade was elected assistant bishop 
of Virginia by the unanimous vote of the laity ; and by 
all the clergy but two, who deposited blank ballots, be- 
cause Mr. Meade did not so hold the validity of episcopal 
orders, as to warrant him in affirming the invalidity of all 
orders not episcopal. Some persons, thinking that future 
conventions should not be deprived of the privilege of 
choosing their bishop, proposed that the assistant should 
not be entitled to succeed the bishop without a new 
election. The House of Bishops objected to this re- 
striction, but signed Dr. Meade's testimonials, and he 
was consecrated in Philadelphia, August 19, 1829. The 
restriction was removed in 1839. 

Bishop Meade's first episcopal act was the consecration 
of a new church at Winchester, within the bounds of 
his old parish, on the thirtieth of October, 1829. Bishop 
Moore's visits, which had never reached the trans- 
Alleghany district, were now limited to tidewater and 
parts adjacent. Bishop Meade traversed the valley from 
the Potomac to the James Biver, and crossing the Blue 
Kidge returned through the Piedmontese district, con- 
firming, ordaining, consecrating, and preaching, day by 
day, until he reached home. Here he remained preaching 
during Lent, confirmed his own parishioners at Easter, 
and proceeded on a visitation of Maryland. In 1830 he 
passed the Alleghany Mountains to Kanawha, and thence 
up the Ohio to Wheeling and Wellsburg, returning by 



22 

way of Romney. In 1831 he visited the infant churches 
in Kentucky and Tennessee, and a large area in Virginia. 
We give these details as a sample of the extent, variety, 
and arduous character of the labors of this unwearied 
worker, who, as Dr. Hawks said, cannot be classed with 
" unpreaching prelates." 

Besides "the care of all the churches," which came upon 
him daily, he had more painful labors to perform. To 
make these intelligible it will be necessary to state briefly 
his relations to various religious and benevolent societies. 
Among them the first in his esteem was the Bible Society, 
which he looked upon as the spring of living waters from 
which the others were streams, which he valued in pro- 
portion to their nearness to the fountain and the purity 
of the streams. When the latter became muddied he 
refused to drink of them himself, or to be the channel of 
conveying them to others. His first printed production 
extant was in behalf of the Bible Society, in 1815, and 
in that there is the noteworthy statement, that out of 
sixty Bible Societies in the United States, eleven of them 
were in Virginia. His life-long interest in it is indicated 
by the fact that one of his last acts was to have, by a 
telegram, his name enrolled as a life-member of the new 
Bible Society of the Confederate States, with a donation 
in money. As long as the General Missionary Society 
was a voluntary institution he cordially sustained it, as 
he continued to do after it came under the care of the 
General Convention in 1835, until he thought the domes- 
tic branch of it was managed in the interests of party. 
He then gave his contributions to domestic missions 
through the Church Missionary Society of the West, es- 
tablished in Philadelphia. He continued to co-operate 
with the foreign committee. He preached a powerful 
sermon in behalf of the cause of temperance before the 
Convention in Staunton, in May, 1834. As to the Tem- 
perance Society, it appears from his letter to Bishop 



23 

Potter that he hesitated about joining in the crusade 
against wine, lest it should reflect upon what is said in 
the New Testament and upon its use in the Lord's Supper. 
His son is of the opinion that he ultimately adopted the 
teetotal pledge in theory, as he did in practice. 

There being at the time no such institution in the 
Episcopal Church, he and Dr. Wilmer, as we have seen, 
established the Episcopal Prayer Book and Tract Society, 
and also patronized the American Tract Society, and Sun- 
day-School Union. In 1826 the Episcopal Sunday-School 
Union was established, not by but during the General 
Convention. It was a voluntary society, and repeated 
efforts to make the General Convention its sponsor failed. 
Bishop Whittingham, Drs. DeLancy and Hopkins, agreed 
with Bishop Meade in opposing it. It being understood 
that it would be impartial as to the two parties in the 
Church, the Diocesan Convention cordially recommended 
it. But as, according to Banclolph of Eoanoke, Patrick 
Henry and George Mason saw the poison under the wings 
of the Federal Constitution, Mr. Meade discerned the 
party color in the Episcopal Sunday-School Union, in the 
form of an expurgated copy of Mrs. Sherwood's cate- 
chism, &c. Against this he earnestly protested, and a 
long, frank, and courteous correspondence ensued between 
him and Dr. Whittingham, the Secretary. A pledge was 
given that the books objected to should be withdrawn, 
and that on no future occasion should offence be given. 
But the society coming into new hands, who repeated the 
offence, Bishop Meade, in an octavo pamphlet of sixty 
pages, reviewed their course and their books. His state- 
ments were denounced as calumnious, and he, despairing 
of any change of policy, withdrew. Thus was sown the 
seed, from which, in 1847, the Evangelical Knowledge 
Society sprung. 

In 1834, to " the care of all the churches " Bishop 
Meade added the special pastoral charge of Christ Church, 



24 

Norfolk, — one of the largest congregations in the dio- 
cese. This task he undertook with a view of harmonizing 
some discords, which prevented the calling of a minister. 
Bishop Meade spent two years in Norfolk, which he says 
were " among the happiest and most useful of his life," 
and were terminated when the Rev. Martin Parks was 
chosen unanimously as rector of Christ Church, and the 
Eev. Thomas Atkinson as rector of old St. Paul's, the 
latter having been ordained deacon by Bishop Meade 
while he resided in Norfolk. 

In 1839 Bishop Meade was called, for a like reason, to 
take charge of St. Paul's Church, Petersburg, where he 
spent six weeks, during which there was a great awaken- 
ing of religious interest, and a large addition to the com- 
munion, as there had been in Norfolk. All discord was 
hushed, and the vestry with one voice called the Rev. 
Nicholas, afterwards Bishop, Cobbs to the charge of St. 
Paul's. The writer succeeded Mr. Cobbs, and reaped 
some of the fruits of his successful ministry. Bishop 
Meade here closed his parochial labors, and devoted him- 
self henceforth exclusively to those of the episcopate, 
which became each year more oppressive from increasing 
age and infirmities, he having now passed his meridian. 
Accordingly, in his address to the Convention of 1841, he 
asked some months' release from his labors. The re- 
sponse of the Convention was prompt and cordial ; and 
he started for Boston to sail for England. On his way he 
received this note : — 

Mount Vernon, April 23, 1841. 

Will our honored and beloved Diocesan accept a staff cut 
from the tomb of the Father of his Country ; and should weak- 
ness come over him in a far distant land, let this be in his hand, 
and remind him of his country, where so many affectionate hearts 
put up prayers to God for his safety and happiness. And in his 
prayers for those he leaves, will he sometimes remember 

The Family at Mount Veenon. 



25 

On the third of May he sailed from Boston, and reached 
Liverpool on the fourteenth. He was absent four months, 
returning to the General Convention in New York in 
October. He enjoyed this recreation like a boy in play- 
time. The beautiful billowy green grass, the grand old 
trees, the churches and castles, and the like, enchanted 
him. His association with the bishops, with the Rev. 
Hartwell Home, William Goode, and many other persons, 
was delightful, and he returned brimful and overflowing 
with pleasant reminiscences. He recorded his impressions 
in letters to the Southern Churchman. 

Soon after his return home he was shocked and grieved 
by the sudden death of the loving and beloved disciple, 
Bishop Moore, who fell " in harness " while on a visitation 
of Lynchburg, on the eleventh of November, 1841. In 
his journal, he records his feelings at the death of him 
with whom he had lived so long as a son with a father, 
saying, " I find myself alone in the episcopate. God, 
help me to do my duties more faithfully and more 
lovingly for the short time allotted to me ! " On the 
eighteenth of May, 1842, he asked the Convention for an 
assistant, saying that for twelve years he had performed 
all the itinerant duties of the diocese, requiring eight 
months each year of successive services, from day to day, 
until his voice and strength were failing. 

In response to his request, the Convention said that, in 
the opinion of his physicians and friends, the Bishop's 
health imperatively demands repose. Accordingly, the 
Rev. John Johns, D.D., rector of Christ's Church, Balti- 
more, was elected assistant bishop in May, 1842, and was 
consecrated in the Monumental Church, Richmond, Octo- 
ber 13, 1842. Bishop Meade continued his visitations, 
often in much pain from disease of the heart, which he 
apprehended might at any moment end his life. Before 
Bishop Moore's death the Tractarian trouble was in the 
air; but Bishop Meade waited for his superior to give 

4 



26 

the note of warning. The latter' s loving heart shrank 
from controversy; but the time soon came when he was 
constrained to sound the alarm, and his trumpet gave 
no uncertain sound in the Convention of 1841. When 
Bishop Meade became the chief pastor he felt that his 
time had come to speak out, and do what in him lay to 
drive away the erroneous and strange doctrines, which 
were disturbing the peace of the Church. This he did 
very explicitly and powerfully in his address to the Con- 
vention of 1842. In view of the approaching General 
Convention, he prepared two very elaborate articles, found 
among his manuscripts, setting forth his opinion of the 
duty of the Church in this emergency. He also had pub- 
lished at his own expense an American edition of the very 
thorough works of his learned friend, the Rev. William 
Goode, Dean of Ripon, which in the opinion of Bishop 
Johns never have been, and never can be, answered. 

For the reasons already stated, Bishop Meade and 
other bishops and clergymen founded the Evangelical 
Knowledge Society, during the General Convention of 
1847 in New York. This society was the object of his 
warmest affections, which he cherished for the last fifteen 
years of his life with his pen and his purse and his 
episcopal influence. It was fiercely assailed from its in- 
ception as a secret conspiracy against the unity of the 
Church, hatched in the dark by men who were afraid of 
the light of day. It must, we think, be acknowledged 
now by all candid and well-informed survivors of the 
time that this clamor was both unjust and ungenerous. 
The writer was present at its inauguration, and can bear 
witness to the catholic spirit displayed by Bishop Meade, 
in favoring the widening of the platform by incorporat- 
ing into the title of the society the word " knowledge," 
on motion of Bishop Eastburn, who thought the word 
"evangelical," pure and simple, might repel some in 
whose minds that word was associated with a narrow 



27 

party bias. And when a good man, more zealous than 
wise, opposed it, and was talking about Gideon and his 
little army, Bishop Meade, with a kind but commanding 
wave of the hand, set him down, and welcomed Bishop 
Eastburn into the society on his own terms. All the con- 
fident predictions of its adversaries were disappointed, 
and the society has done a good work, without disturbing 
the peace of the Church. 

We have now reached the most painful period of 
Bishop Meade's life, and the saddest chapter in the his- 
tory of the American Episcopal Church, namely, the 
trials of the three Bishops. We shall not descend to the 
details of these trials. Those who would form their 
judgments upon the law and testimony in these several 
cases, may consult the printed records. So far as our 
taste and feelings are concerned, we would rather turn 
away our eyes, and throw a veil over the nakedness of 
those right reverend fathers. Our concern here is to do 
justice to Bishop Meade without injustice to other persons, 
and with charity for all. 

It is not to be presumed that any decent person would 
volunteer, without adequate motives, to be a prosecutor 
or swift witness in such cases. These bishops were the 
heads of the great dioceses of New York, Pennsylvania, 
and New Jersey, each with a large following of clergy- 
men, animated by that esprit de corps which character- 
izes all homogeneous bodies of men, and whose church 
principles prompted them to rally around their bishop. 
They were also centres of social circles, filled with men 
of character, talent, and professional eminence. Most 
persons would naturally shrink from assailing those thus 
strongly intrenched. This would be specially true of 
pure-minded women, who would instinctively shrink from 
the public gaze and criticism, and more sensitively from 
being tortured by that terrible engine, a cruel cross- 
examination at the hands of skilled attorneys-at-law. It 



28 

can hardly be supposed that any motive could have im- 
pelled any sane person to such a sacrifice, unless he was 
constrained by stern duty, which Wordsworth beauti- 
fully calls the " daughter of the voice of God." And 
yet this was charged against the presenters. Bishops 
Meade. Otey. Mcllvaine. Burgess, and Elliott, upon whose 
heads and those of their aiders and abettors, vials of 
wrath were poured out through the Press. Bishop 
Meade was singled out as the prime leader of the so- 
called persecution. — the Coryphaeus of a gigantic con- 
spiracy to hunt down the innocent victims of heartless 
malice. Although he has long been acquitted by the 
grand jury of the people, it may be well to conclude this 
notice with the mature opinions of two eminent prelates. 
whose dutv it was to studv the whole case thorouehlv, 
and whose reputations are without stain. I cite Bishops 
Johns and Hopkins. Bishop Johns, referring to this 
charge, says : — 

There were altogether but three instances of judicial disci- 
pline consummated or attempted " in this quarter of the 
Church/' 1st. Bishop H. W. Onderdonk's. with which Bishop 
Meade had nothing to do. till placed on the Committee to 

whom the matter was referred in the House of Bishops : and 
there is no evidence of his action on the Committee further 
than to concur in the Reports and Resolutions, as submitted to 
the House. 2d. Bishop B. T. Onderdonk"s. in which, of the 
three presenting bishops. Bishop Meade was the last, who 
agreed to engage in the enquiry which led to the trial. His 
name precedes the other two simply because he was their 
senior. 3d. Bishop Doane's. in which, as the correspondence 
shows. Bishop Meade was neither foremost in the proceedings. 
nor did he yield to the canonical requisition made upon him. 
until he had endeavored, as far as allowable, to excuse himself 
from the disagreeable duty. — Mem. p. 397. 

And Bishop Hopkins closes his defence of the House of 
Bishops against the assaults of Horace Binnev. Esq.. by 
saying : — 



29 

And now I close my humble labor in defence of the House of 
Bishops. Much might be added, if I were inclined to notice 
the many sharp thrusts of our adversary, and especially his 
severe attack on Bishop Meade, my worthy and widely rever- 
enced brother of Virginia. But on this field of remark I shall 
not enter. My object is to vindicate principles, not men, and 
men only so far as they maintain those principles, which con- 
stitute the praise and glory of the church throughout the world. 
Bishop Meade stands in no need of defence from me. His life 
is his defence ; and I would to God that we could all appeal to 
the same evidence with equal safety. Our learned antagonist? 
however, seems to think it a matter of reproach that this emi- 
nent man has been the leader of all the presentments against 
the bishops. But who has the right to impeach the honesty of 
his motives, or the utility of his labors, in this most thankless 
and yet most important part of his official duty ? Assuredly 
there are thousands in our land who have cordially approved it, 
while yet there might not be one amongst them all who would 
have undergone the odium, toil, and trouble of the task. As to 
myself, I lay no claim to the Christian boldness and fearlessness 
which it required. But yet I should esteem it an honor, far 
beyond any in my reach, if my epitaph should say " Here lies 
the body of a bishop, who was distinguished beyond all his 
brethren for his zealous, sincere, and consistent support of pure 
church discipline." — Mem. pp. 397-399. 



There are few passages in history of a " sublimer as- 
pect" than this of an old man, weary with labor and 
often throbbing with pain, yet ever presenting a serene 
and majestic front to the billows of wrath which beat 
npon him, as the firm rock withstands the angry sea. 
Moral courage is more rare, and of a higher order than 
physical. Scorn and ridicule try the courage more than 
hot shot. Animal courage, heightened by the sound of 
the trumpet and the soldiers' shout, may urge the warrior 
to scale the Redan, or rush up to the fires of Balaklava, 
who would cower before the finger of scorn. But these 
things moved not Bishop Meade. 



30 

11 As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 

Time would fail to tell of Bishop Meade's " journeyings 
oft " and many labors, in the last years of his life. Be- 
sides traversing the whole diocese, he delivered lectures 
at the Seminary, and went as far as New Haven to attend 
a missionary meeting. On October 11, 1859, he, with 
the Bishops of Vermont, Louisiana, and Kentucky, conse- 
crated the group of buildings at the Seminary, in Alexan- 
dria, called Aspinwall Hall, from their beneficent founder ; 
and he delivered an address. In the same year he pre- 
sided over the General Convention, at Richmond, com- 
posed of thirty-six bishops, one hundred and twenty-nine 
clerical, and one hundred and six lay deputies, which 
Bishop Johns suggests must have contrasted strangely in 
his mind with the Convention of seven clergymen, who 
elected BishoD Moore in 1814. As late as 1860 he 

J. 

visited all the congregations of Western Virginia, be- 
tween the last of May and the first of July; attended 
the examinations at the High School and Seminary, in 
Alexandria; held an ordination; and during his vacation 
at home, in the heat of summer, preached in the neigh- 
boring churches. In the fall he visited the churches in 
Piedmontese Virginia, and after retiring into winter- 
quarters at home, he preached at Millwood, Berryville, 
and Winchester. 

Bishop Meade saw with deep emotion the first speck 
of war in the horizon, when it was not bigger than a 
man's hand, and he prayed devoutly that it might pass 
away as the morning cloud. His correspondence with 
Bishop Mcllvaine showed how intently he watched the 
political firmament. December 15, 1860, he writes about 
the bishops raising their voices for peace. "If the 
minister of the Prince of Peace can do nothing in the 



31 

interest of peace, how can we expect the selfish politi- 
cians to do it ? I am almost in despair. I have put forth 
a form of prayer for the present crisis." January 12, 
1861, he writes, " I believe that good sense, self-interest, 
and religion, with God's providence, will arrest the 
calamity of disunion." May 8, 1861, he says, " I have 
slowly and reluctantly come to the conclusion that we 
must separate." May 17, 1861, " We are in daily ex- 
pectation of invasion. They outnumber us and have 
many advantages, but will be met with courage by 
those who believe that they are unjustly and wantonly 
assailed. Virginia may be soon drenched with the blood 
of the flower of her youth, and the strength of her man- 
hood," Bishop Meade, though never meddling with 
politics, which is regarded in Virginia as out of the min- 
isterial sphere, was of the Washington, Hamilton, and 
Marshall school ; and clung to the Union till the Force 
Bill was passed, which made the South solid, as the first 
gun at Sumter did the North. To the Convention of 
1860 he said, "It has pleased God to suffer a great calam- 
ity to come upon us. A deeper and more honest convic- 
tion that it will be on our part a war of self-defence, and 
therefore justifiable before God, seldom, if ever, animated 
the hearts of those who appealed to arms." He now 
seized the forlorn hope, that the separation might be a 
peaceable one, like that between Judah and Israel. " If I 
know my own heart," he said, " could the sacrifice of the 
poor remnant of my life have contributed in any degree 
to the preservation of the Union, such sacrifice would 
have been cheerfully made." He expressed an earnest 
desire " that the ministers and members of our Church, 
and all Virginians, should conduct the contest in the 
most Christian spirit, rising above all uncharitable im- 
putations upon all who are opposed, since many are 
equally sincere on both sides. The Church in Virginia 
has more dear friends and patrons than others in the 



32 

North. The thought of separation from those so long 
dear to me is anguish to my soul, but there is a union of 
heart in our common faith and hope, that can never be 
broken.' ' He commends to special prayer " those who 
have devoted themselves to the defence of the State, 
among whom a large portion of officers and soldiers 
belong to our communion. May they be faithful sol- 
diers of the Cross, as well as valiant and successful de- 
fenders of the State ! " 

The Convention of May, 1861, was the semi-centenary 
of his ministry ; and he preached the Convention sermon. 
It was like the swan-song of the sainted Simeon, or rather 
like Moses on Pisgah, taking a final view of the past, and 
a prospect of the promised land. In looking back, 

" Visions of the past 
Crowd on his memory fast." 

His voice faltered as he spoke of the joys of his ministry, 
and the personal kindnesses he had received till his 
" cup was full," and running over ; of the revival of the 
Church, so that dead formulas had become instinct with 
life, and dumb truths had found a tongue to utter them 
with unction ; of the goodly company of preachers now 
met in the metropolis, where only a few despairing ones 
had assembled around a table in a committee-room of 
the capitol. He saw in the past cause for deep humilia- 
tion in the imperfection of his services. 

" O God ! " he exclaims, " Thou knowest my foolishness and 
my sins are not hid from Thee. Some painful duties I have 
had to do, alienating in a measure some friends I would have 
retained nearest my heart, making some enemies whose friend- 
ship I desired, and incurring censures I would have avoided, 
if it could have been done with a good conscience. I have 
spoken of the past fifty years ; if the veil could be raised which 
hides the coming half century, the beginning of which is at 
our door, we might see garments rolled in blood, fields strewn 
with mangled bodies, cities crumbled into ruins." 



33 

When he said, as he had said in substance the day 
before, that if the sacrifice of his life could reunite the 
sections, which were frowning upon each other like cliffs 
that had been rent asunder, it would be gladly made, 
every one felt that this was no vain boast. Again, when 
the old patriarch said that if in the brief remnant of his 
life, his understanding, such as it was, should fail, "my 
friends will remember the injunction to children in behalf 
of a declining father, 'If his understanding fail, have 
patience with him and despise him not," , his hearers felt 
that the offender would deserve the severest condem- 
nation. 

The diocese of Virginia was as slow in moving towards 
separation as the State was towards secession. Up to the 
Convention of May, 1861, she stood still, silently, but not 
without deep emotion, surveying the situation. The 
other Southern dioceses had drafted a constitution and 
called a provisional council in Columbia, South Carolina, 
for November, 1861 ; inviting the bishops and deputies 
of the seceded States to meet them. Accordingly the 
Convention of Virginia, in 1861, appointed a provisional 
committee, consisting of Bishop Johns, Dr. Sparrow, the 
Rev. John Grammer, Judge Gholson, R. H. Cunningham, 
and James Gait, to act in the interim as the exigencies 
of the time might demand, and also to represent the 
diocese in any Convention that might be held. On the 
twenty-fourth of May the Federal troops occupied Alex- 
andria, and Bishop Meade returned to his home ; and on 
the thirteenth of June, the day set apart by the President 
of the Confederate States for prayer and fasting, he 
addressed his old congregation at Millwood. The situa- 
tion was peculiar. Two invading armies were approach- 
ing from opposite directions, and the temptation was 
strong to propitiate the coming invaders ; but he held 
the balance even, and meted out to both parties what he 
conceived to be the measure of their sins. He said, in 



34 

substance, that historians and poets had painted in glow- 
ing colors the pomp and circumstance of glorious war ; 
but the Word of God did not thus speak ; on the contrary, 
it said that wars and fightings came of men's lusts, 
warring in their members. He then arraigned both 
sections for their sins of profanity, blasphemy, intemper- 
ance, Sabbath-breaking, and sectional hate. The only 
wars that had any pretence for justification were those 
in defence of the rights of person and property; and 
even these were attended with so much sin and suffering, 
that they must be regarded as sore scourges and judg- 
ments of an angry God. 

" I am no politician," he said, " but only an humble preacher 
of the Gospel ; but could I be permitted to speak a word in the 
ear of the Administration and the Congress, which rule over 
almost boundless territory, with millions of people, destined to 
increase to thousands of millions, I would say, in the name of 
God and humanity, throw not away the noblest opportunity 
true patriotism and philanthropy ever gave to the rulers of 
the nations, to propose at once honorable terms, and let the 
separation be one of friends and not of enemies. What monu- 
ment ever erected to the greatest generals of earth, for subduing 
and recovering revolted provinces for a few years, can be com- 
pared to the peaceable settlement of the great controversy now 
about to deluge the land with blood ! " 

The bishops of Virginia, with the deputies in the 
Convention, attended the Council at Columbia, and took 
part in the proceedings which led to the establishment of 
the Church in the Confederate States. As the stricken 
deer, pursued by the hunter, retraces its steps to the lair 
whence it started in the chase, so the old bishop, tossed 
upon the tide of war, once more seeks shelter from the 
tempest in the harbor of his own home. He issued an 
appeal to his people to look into their stores of food, their 
bed-clothing and the carpets upon their floors, to see 
what they could spare for the comfort of the soldiers 



35 

in the field, during the winter's cold. And then he went 
into winter-quarters at Mountain View, which hitherto 
had seemed to have the effect fabled of Antaeus, whose 
strength was always renewed so soon as he touched his 
mother earth. 

All animals have by nature what the French happily 
call "sites d'affections " — local attachments. Birds will 
compass sea and land to come back to the nests in which 
they were hatched, and the faithful dog will break the 
chain which detains him from his loved home, to which 
he joyfully runs after years of absence. In man, this 
instinct rises to the dignity of patriotism. The poets are 
the best interpreters of human nature, revealing by one 
luminous flash into the great deep of the heart treasures 
for which the philosopher slowly and painfully mines. 
When Goldsmith tells of the " untravelled heart " of his 
Traveller fondly turning from whatever realm he sees to 
his own home ; when Walter Scott assumes that there is 
no man with soul so dead, who has never said to himself, 
" This is my own, my native land," they speak a language 
which finds an echo in all human hearts. The country 
may be barren, the home may be a cabin, but it is the 
nest of our infancy. We have been young and happy 
there as a bird under the wings of its mother. We love 
even the stones upon which we tread, and the trees under 
whose shade we have played. 

This instinct is recognized and commended in Holy 
Scriptures by the pathos of the patriarchs, in the songs 
of the psalmist by the waters and willows of Babylon, by 
Saint Paul's u heart's desire " for his brethren according 
to the flesh ; and culminates in our Saviour's touching 
apostrophe to Jerusalem. Bishop Meade had this instinct 
in large measure. He was a Virginian in every fibre of 
his soul and body ; and of all Virginia the valley was the 
paradise to him, and in the physiognomy of the valley 
Mountain View was the most pleasing feature. It was 



36 

the home of his fathers ; and in looking back from this 
point to the " blue mountains of his dim childhood," 
he saw, with what Howell calls " ancestral eyes," the 
parents from whom he derived his being, who had put 
the chart of life in his hands, and pointed him to the 
Star in the Heavens by which he should steer his course. 
Here were the mountain paths he trod in his boyhood, 
and the transparent streams in which he quenched his 
thirst, and bathed his limbs. Here were the scenes of 
his school-boy plays with the lads he loved, and the lasses 
with whom he danced on the oTeen. His hands had 
helped to build the first house for the bride of his youth ; 
had ploughed the first furrow in the farm, and sowed the 
first seed, when Mountain Yiew was cut off from Lucky 
Hit, and set apart as his portion of the paternal estate. 
Often, when worn with work he came back, like a bird 
with weary wing, to this nest of his infancy, his youth 
was renewed like the eagle's amid these beautiful images 
of his early years. The writer will never forget when 
the Bishop, after presiding at the morning session of the 
Convention in Norfolk, asked him to walk with him to his 
lodgings. Upon reaching his chamber the Bishop threw 
himself upon his bed for rest. The writer was on the 
eve of sailing for Europe ; and in talking about leaving 
home, the Bishop asked if he remembered the lines of 
Ovid, — 

Ter limen tetigi, ter sum revocatus, et ipse 

Indulgens amnio pes mihi tardus erat ; 

Saepe vale dicto rursus sum multa locutus, 

Et quasi discedens oscula summa dedi; 

Saepe eadem maudata dedi,meque ipse . fefelli, 

Respiciens oculis piguora cara meis. 

Roma relinquenda est. . . . 

Uxor in eternum vivo mihi viva negatur, 

Et domus et fidae dulcia membra domus. 

He recited the lines with much feeling, adding that 
he could scarcely ever read them without tears. There 



37 

were other associations of a more sacred sort, as the 
lines suggest, which endeared his mountain home to 
him, and gave to Ovid's Tristia a peculiar pathos. 
Here he had lived happily with two loving and beloved 
wives. 

Of his first marriage with Mary, daughter of Philip 
Nelson, who was the mother of his children, we have 
already spoken. She was taken from him, July 3, 1817. 
It was some comfort to him, he said, that she had died 
in his arms ; that he " heard the last breath from her lips, 
and felt the last pulse in her veins. Just as the glorious 
sun arose, her spirit ascended to heaven, leaving a most 
unworthy but much attached husband and three mother- 
less boys to mourn their loss." She was buried at the old 
chapel, under a marble slab, with this inscription, " Mary 
has chosen that good part, which never shall be taken 
from her." " A silent and loving woman is a gift from 
the Lord." Three years and a half after the death of 
his first wife he married, December 16, 1820, Thomasia, 
daughter of Thomas Nelson of Yorktown and Hanover, 
a woman of exemplary piety, and one of the sweetest 
singers in Israel, who often accompanied him upon his 
visitations, and raised the tunes in public worship. She 
cherished his children as if they had been her own. She 
died on the twentieth of May, 1836, and was buried at 
the Fork Church in Hanover, by the side of her grand- 
mother, relict of General Nelson of York. The Bishop's 
Reminiscences of these godly women lay by him in manu- 
script for thirty years, and were then privately printed, 
being designed only for the eyes of his children. 

Mountain View was also the scene of his life-long 
ministry, during which lines of relationship of the most 
sacred character were established between him and 
many successive flocks of parishioners, whom he had 
baptized, catechized, confirmed, married, taught from 
the pulpit and from house to house, and most of whom 



38 

he had buried in the Cemetery at the old chapel, to 
which he had always looked as the last resting-place of 
his own remains, when his work was done. 

The present dwelling is the second upon the same 
site. The first, which he helped to build with his own 
hands, was an oblong, plain building of brick and wood, 
with an eccentric staircase running from the ground on 
the outside to a narrow point, which made the ascent to 
one's lodgings, for old folks, somewhat perilous. This 
was succeeded by a square brick tenement, to which in 
time two rooms of wood were added on the north, and 
later, two more on the east, one for the Bishop's chamber, 
and the other for his study, — a luxury which hitherto he 
had never enjoyed, his studies having been pursued like 
those of the "judicious Hooker" and of Scott, the com- 
mentator, amid the chattering of children in the chamber, 
affording an opportunity for testing the theory of Dr. 
Arnold, of Rugby, that no student could continue long in 
a healthy religious state, unless his heart was kept tender 
by mingling with children, or with the poor and the 
suffering. 

The surrounding grounds, comprising about twenty-five 
or thirty acres, are carpeted by a velvety greensward, 
like that on the blue-grass lands of Kentucky. The man- 
sion faces the south ; the front and rear grounds are 
adorned with native and transplanted trees, single and in 
groups; in the west is a grove of grand aboriginal oaks. 
To the east is the garden, producing grapes, evergreens, 
and flowers; and the orchard, with its choice fruits, planted 
by the Bishop's hands or under his eye. At his study 
window was a fine cedar, plucked by the roots from the 
walls near the ceiling of the historical church in the Isle 
of Wight. Among the evergreens were some from the 
cliffs of the Kanawha and other rivers of Virginia, and 
a cedar from Mount Lebanon. There was also a willow 
from the tomb of Napoleon at St. Helena. The Bishop 



39 

used to carry an oilcloth to wrap such shrubs as he 
fancied in his visitations. Each tree had its story, and 
it was pleasant to him to rehearse it to his sympathizing 
guests. The Blue Ridge, at whose base runs the Shenan- 
doah River, bounds the eastern view, and far away to the 
south rise the peaks of the Fort Mountain, visible on a 
clear day, — a freak of nature which the Bishop admired, 
not only for its physical features, but for its real and its 
fancied historical associations. 

The Massanutten Mountain, from a point near New 
Market, runs northeast in a single chain, corresponding 
to the windings of the Shenandoah River. Nearly op- 
posite to Luray it parts into two parallel chains, inclosing 
a valley twenty-five miles long, and of a mean breadth 
of three miles, and traversed by a bold mountain stream, 
called Passage Creek. The east and west Fort Mountains 
draw very near each other at their terminations, nearly 
opposite Strasburg. Through the narrow gorge the creek 
issues, leaving barely room for a road, which in part 
runs in the bed of the creek. The mountains rise per- 
pendicularly one thousand feet, crag upon crag, accessible 
only to birds, which make their nests in the rocks. It 
is a natural fort, and hence its name. Washington was 
heard to say that, if he was driven from the east by the 
foe, he would make his last stand in this stronghold. 
This mountain was in the parish of General Muhlenberg, 
who doffed his gown for a soldier's uniform at v the out- 
break of the Revolution, and may have suggested the idea 
to Washington, who, however, in his youth was surveyor 
for Lord Fairfax, whose seat, Greenway Court, was within 
a few miles of Mountain View. Bishop Meade fancied 
that he saw in these mountains a striking likeness to the 
mountains of Edom, as described in Holy Scripture ; and 
it was delightful to hear him speculate upon these things, 
and upon Jefferson's theory that the valley of Virginia 
w r as once a great lake, whose waters burst their barriers 



40 

at Harper's Ferry, making scenery so grand that it was 
worth a voyage over the Atlantic to see it. Bishop Meade 
thought that the valley of the Fort might have been 
a little lake within the great one. He, like David, was 
an ardent lover of nature, offering sacrifices of praise 
upon her rocky altars. The blue illuminated pages of 
the heavens, and the green picturesque pages of earth, 
were to him a real revelation. No one could have more 
heartily sympathized with the sweet Psalmist of Israel, to 
whose eyes and ears all nature seemed so animated and 
vocal, that he called upon sun, moon, stars, and light, 
mountains and hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, and all 
green things upon earth, to praise the name of the Lord. 
u How often," said he, " did my wife and I, with the boys 
playing around us, walk over our little farm rejoicing in 
its riches, and admiring the woods and mountains around 
us, and our small fields richly clad with grass, and beauti- 
fully blooming with clover." Like David, too, he was a 
keeper of sheep, preferring to derive his living from flocks, 
and disliking to have the green turf turned under by 
the plough. 

At a later period, he was often accompanied in his walks 
by his grandchildren, hanging to his hands, and climbing 
over his shoulders. At such times he relaxed, like a bow 
w T hich had been too highly strung, recovering its elastic- 
ity when the strings were loosed. If those who thought 
him a cold and hard man could have seen him in these 
hours of " abandon " to the bliss of home, when his affec- 
tions, pent up in pursuit of duty and discipline, welled 
over in words of tenderness and acts of kindness, it would 
have softened their censure. And if they could have 
known how he contented himself with simple fare and the 
plainest plain furniture, and with homely apparel and 
equipage, that he might accumulate funds from which his 
charities flowed through unseen channels into the treasuries 
of religious societies, into scantily furnished rectories, the 



41 

dwellings of the poor, and the asylums of the widow and 
the orphan, they would have applauded that modest 
charity which, hiding itself from the eyes of men, could 
patiently wait for its open reward in heaven. 

But it may be said we are trying to paint a perfect 
portrait. We reply, with reverence, "God forbid!" In 
the annals of human history there is but one spotless 
page on which the eye of a Holy God can look with hal- 
lowed joy, — the page which records the life and death 
of the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the 
world. The sun has its spots ; and those who have a 
taste for it may spy them through the telescope ; but 
most people would rather admire and rejoice in the light 
and warmth and beauty and bliss which the sun dispenses, 
than look through magnifying-glasses at its spots. It was 
a principle with him not to flatter others, or to accept 
flattery from them ; and this rule made him, perhaps, 
wanting in what we call the courtesies of life. He would 
not seek " to use men by playing upon their vanity or 
other weaknesses," and he could not be swayed in that 
way. " Perhaps," said Dr. Sparrow, " he did not always 
make due allowance for difference of temperament and 
manners, and may thus have forfeited some very super- 
ficial popularity." But discerning men saw through these 
outside shows his genuine benevolence, sterling integrity, 
and honored him accordingly. In estimating character, 
Carlyle has well said, the pertinent question is not how 
much chaff can you find, but how much wheat. 

The time of harvest for him was now nigh at hand, and 
like a ripe shock of corn he was ready for the sharp sickle 
of the reaper. His study during his last winter had been 
in the Prophets ; but he was soon to pass from the mount 
of faith to the mount of vision, and see the substance of 
what the prophets saw in shadows. But we must let 
the curtain fall upon this scene of pastoral beauty. The 
next scene will be a tragedy. 



42 

Owing to the state of the country, it had hitherto been 
impossible to get together three bishops for the consecra- 
tion of the Kev. R. H. Wilmer, D.D., to the episcopate of 
Alabama. Bishop Meade, being the presiding bishop of 
the Church of the South, was very unwilling that this 
consecration should be again deferred, and made an 
appointment for it to take place in St. Paul's Church, 
Richmond. Though suffering from a deep cold, he haz- 
arded his life by leaving home on an inclement day to 
meet the appointment. His son, the Rev. R. K. Meade, 
met him at Gordonsville, and says that when his father 
entered the train he was coughing and panting for breath, 
so that he could scarcely speak. On the appointed day, 
being unable to be present during the whole service, he 
walked up the aisle, evidently in pain, but with his usual 
placid dignity, and took his seat in the chancel just before 
the act of consecration. Bishops Johns and Elliott helped 
him from his chair to his feet, supporting him, and join- 
ing with him in the imposition of hands, " while his voice, 
once of such sweetness and compass, now trembling and 
broken, uttered the Apostolic commission." A feeling of 
mingled awe and sympathy and sadness seemed to shroud 
the sanctuary. The newly-made bishop must have been 
deeply impressed by the fact that the first and last offi- 
cial act of the presiding bishop of the South was the con- 
secration of the son of his earliest and ablest co-worker 
in the revival of the Church in Virginia ; and that this 
supreme effort of the aged patriarch hastened his death, 
if it did not cost him his life. 

He returned from the church to the hospitable home 
of his friend, Mr. J. L. Bacon, where he was nursed with 
as much tender care and loving sympathy as if he had 
been in the bosom of his family. The flushed wave that 
tided him over the office of consecration, awakened hopes 
that it might bear him back to his home. The w r riter, 
who saw him a few days after, with his usual measured 



43 

tread pacing Mr. Bacon's basement sitting-room, had no 
apprehension that the end was so near. But the tide 
soon began to ebb. His limbs, which had been so long 
the obedient servants of his strong will, gradually ceased 
to respond to its bidding. When Bishop Johns entered 
the room on Monday, March 17, Bishop Meade said, "Let 
me rise and walk a little." He put on his dressing-gown, 
and, with his arm around Bishop Johns's neck, took a 
few steps with so much difficulty that he begged to be 
put in bed again. When he lay down he said, " It is all 
over ; my strength is gone ; it is as good a time as any 
for me to die." For a few days more he suffered with 
quiet equanimity dreadful paroxysms of pain in the heart. 
"Head me," he said, "the history of the crucifixion;" 
upon which, his comment was, " Yes, six hours did our 
Lord suffer the intense agony of the cross for us, for our 
sins, and shall we complain of our sufferings ? The cup 
which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it ? " 

Bishop Meade's death was no more dramatic than his 
life. There was no death-bed scene, such as often occurs 
in the cases of some, who, under the influence of medical 
or moral anodynes, are sent with the song of victory on 
their lips to the church triumphant in heaven, who never 
fought the good fight of faith in the church militant on 
earth. As he followed our Lord in life, so he was called 
to follow him in death, — sustained by an unfaltering 
trust in that 

" sacrifice 

Renew'd in every pulse 

That on the tedious Cross 
Told the long hours of death, as, one by one, 
The life-strings of that tender heart gave way." 

On Tuesday morning he asked to be alone with Bishop 
Johns. He then said : — 

I wish to bear my testimony to some things of importance. 
The views of evangelical truth and order which I have advo- 
cated for fifty years I approve, and exhort my brethren, North 



44 

and South, to promote more than ever. My course in civil 
affairs I also approve, — resistance to Secession at first, till cir- 
cumstances made it unavoidable. I trust the South will perse- 
vere in separation. I believe there are thousands in the Xorth 
who condemn the course of their Administration towards us, 
and in time will express themselves openly. 

The prospect of rest from sin and suffering is attractive, 
though I am willing to remain and take my part in the labors 
and trials which may be before us. ]\Iy hope is in Christ — the 
Rock of Ages. I have no fear of death ; and this not from my 
courage, but from my faith. The present seems a proper time 
for my departure. I am at peace with God, through Jesus Christ, 
my Lord, and in charity with all men, even our bitterest enemies. 
All that has ever been said in commendation of me I loathe and 
abhor, as utterly inconsistent with my consciousness of sin. 

I commend you and all my brethren to the tender mercies of 
Christ, and pray for his blessing on the Church in Virginia. 

Thursday evening he asked the time of day, and being 
told said, "Then I shall not see Kichard;" meaning his 
son, the Rev. R. K. Meade, who had gone to Mountain 
View to bring away some valuable papers, before the tide 
of war overflowed his home. The only member of his 
immediate family with him was his grandson, "William 
Meade, now Dr. Meade, of Philadelphia. General Lee 
called several times. His last visit was the daj r before 
the Bishop's death. He was much touched, and as he 
leaned over the bed, the Bishop laid his hand upon the 
General's head and said, " God bless you, Robert ! I 
called you Robert when I heard j^ou say your catechism, 
and so I call you now." 

We will not intrude any farther into the chamber where 
the good man meets his fate, though it be " privileged 
beyond the common walks of life, quite on the verge of 
heaven." Let it suffice to conclude this scene in the 
words of Bishop Johns : " I witnessed his departure, and 
cried from the deep of my heart : ' My Father ! My 
Father ! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof " 



45 

The funeral took place from St. Paul's Church, and the 
body was deposited in a vault in Hollywood Cemetery. 
In the afternoon, the clergy passed appropriate resolutions. 
The body was afterwards interred with becoming religious 
rites in a lot in Hollywood. An appropriate monument 
of marble, imported from Italy, was raised over his re- 
mains ; but both monument and remains have since been 
removed to the cemetery of the Theological Seminary of 
Virginia. The following is the epitaph : — 

[South Face.] 

Sacred to the memory of the K,t. Rev. Wm. Meade, D.D., 

Third Bishop of Virginia, 

Born in Clarke Co., Va., Nov. 11, 1789, 

Died in the City of Richmond, March 14, 1862. 

[East End.] 

Erected as a memorial of love and veneration 

By the Protestant Episcopal Church of Va. 

[North Face.] 

Prominent in the revival of the Church after the Revolutionary War, he 

was the zealous defender of its purity, and the founder and liberal patron of 

the Theological Seminary of Virginia. 

[West End.] 
He lived for Christ, died in Christ, and we believe is with Christ. 

The following sums were subscribed for paying for and 
improving the lot in Hollywood, and the erection of a 
monument ; namely, William H. McFarland, John Stewart, 
John Lyddall Bacon, and Joseph R. Anderson, each $200 = 
$800; James Dunlop, Henry E. Baskerville, Mitchell & 
Tyler, William H. Hubbard, R. & R. S. Archer, William W. 
Haxall, Charles Minnegerode, Thomas R. Price, William F. 
Gray, Richard B. Haxall, William C. Rives, each 
$1100; Grace Church, Petersburg, Rev. Dr. Gibson, 
Christ Church, Charlottesville, $160; other subscriptions 
from $25 to $50 each. Total $2901. 

I cannot so well conclude this sketch as in the words of 
that accomplished gentleman and divine, the late Right 
Reverend Stephen Elliott, D.D., Bishop of Georgia, on 
whom Bishop Meade had laid his hands in consecration 
on February 28, 1841. 



46 

On Saturday, the first of March, I left Savannah for Rich- 
mond, and on Thursday, the sixth of March, united with the 
late presiding Bishop of the Confederate States and the Assist- 
ant Bishop of Virginia in the consecration of the Rev. Richard 
H. Wiimer, D.D., to the episcopate of Alabama. The solemnity of 
this act was deepened by the exceeding weakness of our late Right 
Reverend Father in God, Bishop Meade, which permitted him 
only to pronounce the words of consecration. It was the last act 
of his life, of his long and devoted life. He returned to his home 
from the church never to leave it again. In a week from the day 
upon which I bade him farewell he was taken to his rest in the 
bosom of God, — a rest he had longed for, and had well battled for. 
Truly might he say, in humble imitation of the great Apostle to 
the Gentiles : " For I am now ready to be offered, and the time 
of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have 
finished my course, I have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid 
up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the right- 
eous Judge, shall give me at that day." Thus has died one of 
the most remarkable men whom the Church has produced in 
these latter days. 

I knew him well, having been connected with him, and 
studied him deeply ; for his was a character to be studied. To 
those who looked upon him superficially, or crossed his path in 
the way of duty or discipline, he appeared but as a stern, un- 
bending, uncompromising champion of the right and the true. 
To that point, it is conceded, he desired to bring himself ; but 
it was because he felt within himself the stirring of high imagi- 
nations, of deep overpowering feelings, of intense aristocratic 
pride. He trampled upon them all ; but at what cost and what 
struggle but few can understand. Raised up by God to leaven 
the Church, at a moment when that Church was full of coldness 
and erastianism, he felt that he must first school himself ere he 
could perform the work for which he had been anointed. And 
this he did unfalteringly and without any visible shrinking. 
Fearless by nature, frank by temperament, straightforward be- 
cause he always aimed at noble ends, commanding through 
character, he turned all the qualities which would have made 
him a hero or a warrior into the channels of the Church, and 
fought for her against the world, the flesh, and the devil, as he 
would have fought for his country against her natural enemies. 
All really grand men stand very much alone; they become iso- 



47 

lated because few can comprehend them. And Bishop Meade 
was a great man, one of the heroes of faith ; and it was only when 
you were privileged to know him in his moments of tenderness 
and softness, when sad memories gushed over him, or deep un- 
utterable feelings forced themselves through the covering of 
grace, that you could appreciate how much the man had been 
absorbed into the Christian and the bishop. Would that we 
had more champions like him ; then would the Church indeed 
appear in her power before the world, overcoming it as did her 
Lord, and not compromising with it for her own selfish ends. 
He was taken from us when we could, so far as human eye can 
see, but ill spare him. God knows he may have been taken from 
evil to come; for the tide of w^ar had just reached his own door 
when his spirit took its everlasting flight. 

As much importance is attached, in these times, to the 
physical features as well as the ancestral traits of the 
subjects of biography, it may be well to say that in his 
youth Mr. Meade was of slender frame and in delicate 
health, as the portrait of him when at Princeton, where 
he graduated, indicates. His hair was dark brown origi- 
nally, and later of silver gray. His brow was capacious, 
and suggestive rather of a vigorous than of a brilliant 
mind. His eyes, in the first portrait and also in one 
taken when he was forty years of age, seem to be dark; 
but the recollection of those most familiar with him is 
that they were of steel gray, shaded with dark blue. 
The eye was his weak organ, failing always under hard 
study, and demanding rest. This weakness he thought a 
providential damper to his ambition, and reconciled him 
to it. His height was five feet ten inches and a half, and 
he was perfectly erect to the last. By much exercise in 
the open air, in manual labor, in long walks, and on horse- 
back, his frame was developed into a manly and vigor- 
ous form, with great ability for labor, and with a happy 
unconsciousness of a nervous system, which made him, 
perhaps, a little intolerant of those who were painfully 
conscious of that possession. When asked how he felt in 



48 
a storm at sea, he calmly replied, " You know I was never 



nervous." 



Bishop Meade's portrait at the Seminary in Alexandria 
is highly characteristic ; it is also an illustration of his 
church views. His arm and hand rest upon the Holy 
Bible. By its side is the folio Opera Cranmeri ; and con- 
spicuous among other books, and the only one w r hose title 
is displayed, is Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, which rep- 
resents more nearly than any one book, unless it be the 
Book of Common Prayer, Bishop Meade's views of the 
doctrine and discipline of the Church. Dr. "William Wil- 
mer, too, so efficient in the first measures for the restora- 
tion of the Church in Virginia, showed his appreciation of 
Hooker by naming his son, the present Bishop of Alabama, 
Richard Hooker. 

The Protestant Episcopal Church never had a more 
loyal and loving son born within her bosom than Bishop 
Meade. If any one wishes to know his theory of the 
subject, they will find it in his Reasons for loving the 
Episcopal Church, published in 1852, and re-published 
recently, which is an able and loving exposition of the 
ground of his ardent attachment to its doctrine, discipline, 
and worship. If one wishes to see his faith tested by 
works, let him look at his life. When he made up his 
mind to study for the ministry, the Church in* Virginia 
had so little vitality that there had been no convention 
from 1805 to 1811. He entered the ministry the very 
year (1811) in which a General Convention at New Ha- 
ven, in which Virginia had no representative, reported 
"that they feared the Church in Virginia was so depressed 
that there was danger of her total ruin, unless great ex- 
ertions, favored by the blessing of Providence, are em- 
ployed to revive her." It was in this dark hour that this 
young man, only twenty-one years of age, turned his back 
upon the dazzling worldly prospects that the tempter set 
before him, preferring to suffer affliction with her than 



49 

to bow down to mammon, or set his sails to the popular 
religious breeze of the hour. When, feeling the need of 
a native ministry, he asked Chief Justice Marshall for 
a contribution to that end, that great and good man, 
while subscribing handsomely, said he feared it was un- 
kind to tempt the young men of Virginia into the min- 
istry of a Church which could never be revived. But 
Mr. Meade, believing that the Church was not dead, but 
torpid from the effect of the fetters by which she had 
been manacled to the State, and that what she needed 
for her restoration was warm " spiritual preaching and 
holy living," resolved to devote his life and fortune to 
her service. He lived to see her rise from the dust, as 
Devereux Jarratt had predicted, and put on her beautiful 
garments and become a power in the land ; for she was 
never so prosperous as at the advent of the civil war. 

The Bishop seems to have had no literary ambition. 
He wrote nothing for fame. He was too busy to have 
time for elaborating or giving a literary finish to his writ- 
ings. He wrote nothing but to meet a present and press- 
ing demand; and yet everything that proceeded from his 
pen was the fruit of anxious thought, careful investiga- 
tion, and sufficient learning, and marked by strong practi- 
cal common sense and vigorous argument. It has been 
well said that false doctrines will not wait to be corrected 
by ponderous folios or cumbrous quartos. The pamphlet, 
the tract, the occasional address, the weekly sermon, and 
the daily newspaper are the great instruments of mould- 
ing the doctrines of the Church and the country. The 
" word in season," of which Solomon understood the value, 
when he likened it to " apples of gold in pictures of silver," 
must arrest error, confirm faith, purify opinion, and com- 
mend morality and religion. Bishop Meade seems to 
have acted on this principle. His last and most elab- 
orate work, The Bible and the Classics, — the fruit of 
wide and careful research, — was designed to meet what 

7 



50 

seemed to him a pressing want in the schools, which he 
had tried for thirty years to get some one to supply, 
and among these the learned Mr. Faber in England. 
His other larger work, Old Churches and Families, was 
written in instalments for a magazine, and in the midst 
of his visitations and other preoccupations. This work is 
a valuable museum of facts within his own knowledge, 
and gathered from all accessible sources. Although he 
never had time to digest and reduce it to method, it 
fills what without it would be a "hiatus valde deflendus." 
It has errors of course, from the mistakes of his informers, of 
the copyists, and the press, as all such books have. These 
in process of time will be corrected; and it will be revised, 
enlarged, methodized, and illustrated. But in the mean 
time it will remain a monument of his wonderful personal 
knowledge and acquirements in this line. The present 
writer was the first to publish a parish history on the 
basis of the vestry books and registers. After printing 
Bristol Parish (1846) and St. George's Parish (1847), his 
health failed, and in 1856 Bishop Meade commenced 
his series, incorporating the two foregoing histories into 
his larger work. 

• 

LINEAGE OF BISHOP WILLIAM MEADE. 

The Meade # family (anciently rendered Meagh) is one of the oldest in 
Ireland. Andrew 1 Meade, of this lineage, who was, it is believed, in faith 
a Romanist, emigrated from County Kerry to America near the close of 
the seventeenth century. He landed in New York, where he married 
Mary Latham, of Flushing, a member of the Society of Friends, and after 
a residence of five years moved to Virginia, and located in Nansemond 
County, where he died in 1745, leaving issue : — 

1. Priscilla 2 : Married Wilson Curie, of Hampton. 

2. David 2 : Born 1690; died 1737; married Susanna, daughter of Sir 
Richard Everard f of Bromfield Hall, County Essex, England, and 

* William Meade, of this family, was consecrated Bishop of Kildare in 1540, and 
was a Privy Councillor to Henry VIII. 

t Sir Richard Everard (died February 17, 1733), son of Sir Hugh Everard (born 



51 

Governor of North Carolina, and his wife Susanna, daughter of Richard 
Kidder (died November, 1703), Bishop of Bath and Wells, who was 
heiress of large estates in England. Issue : — 

1. Anne 3 : Married Richard Randolph, of Curies, James River. 

2. David 3 : Married a daughter of Col. William Waters, of Williams- 
burg, Virginia; lived first at "Mayeux," and later at " Chaumiere," Ken- 
tucky, both seats being noted for the beauty of the grounds attached. 
They had a numerous issue, whose descendants are scattered through 
the Western States. 

3. Mary 3 : Married Colonel Walker. 

4. Richard Kidder 3 : Colonel and aid to General Washington in 
the Revolution ; born July 14, 1746 ; died February 9, 1805, of gout ; 
married, 1765, Jane, daughter of Richard Randolph, of Curies, who 
died without issue. He married, 2d, December 10, 1780, Mary, daughter 
of Benjamin and Bettie* (Fitzhugh) Grymes, and granddaughter of 
John f and Lucy t (Ludwell) Grymes, and widow of William Ran- 
dolph, of Chatsworth, Virginia. She was born November 9, 1753 ; and 
died June 16, 1813. 

5. Everard 3 : Aid to General Benjamin Lincoln, and subsequently 
known as General Meade. 

6. Andrew 3 : Settled in Brunswick County, Virginia. 

7. John 3 : Died in infancy. 

Issue of Colonel Richard Kidder 3 and Mary (Grymes-Randolph) 
Meade : — 

1. Anne Randolph 4 : Born December 3, 178^; married March 23, 
1799, Matthew Page, of Frederick County, Virginia. 

2. Richard Kidder 4 : Born February 18,1784; died February 26, 
1833; married December 19, 1815. 

3. William Fitzhugh 4 : Died in infancy. 

4. Susanna 4 : Born March 9, 1788 ; died October 2, 1823. 

1655 ; died January, 1706, — son of Sir Richard Barrington Everard, born 1624 ; 
died August, 1694) and Mary, daughter of John Brown, M.D. 

* Bettie Fitzhugh, daughter of William and Lucy (daughter of Robert, son of 
John and Sarah (Ludlow) Carter) Fitzhugh. The wife of Robert Carter was Eliza- 
beth, daughter of Thomas and Mary Landon. William Fitzhugh was the son of 

William and Mary (or Anne Lee) Fitzhugh, and grandson of William and 

(Tucker) Fitzhugh, and of Richard (born 1647 ; died 1714) and Lettice (daughter 
of Henry Corbin)Lee. 

t John Grymes, born 1693 ; died November 2, 1748, Receiver-General of Vir- 
ginia ; son of John Grymes (died 1708) and Alice, daughter of Lawrence and Sarah 
(Warner, sister of Augustine Warner) Townley. 

J Lucy Ludwell, daughter of Philip and Hannah (Harrison — daughter of Ben- 
jamin Harrison) Ludwell, and grand-daughter of Philip and Lucy Ludwell, from 
County Somerset, England, Governor of North Carolina, 1693-1697. Philip Lud- 
well married, secondly, Lady Francis, widow of Sir William Berkeley. 



52 

5. William 4 : Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Vir- 
ginia ; born November 11, 1789; died March 1$ 1862; married, 1st, 
January 31, 1810, Mary, daughter of Philip and Sarah (Burwell) Nel- 
son, of Frederick, Virginia, who died in 1817. He married, 2d, De- 
cember/6, 1820, Thomasia, daughter of Thomas and Fanny Nelson, of 
Yorktown and Hanover, who died July 26, 1836. 

Issue of Bishop William 4 and Mary (Nelson) Meade : — 

1. Philip Nelson 5 : Born December 19, 1810; died in 1872. 

2. Richard Kidder 5 : Minister Protestant Episcopal Church, Char- 
lottesville, Virginia ; born October 31, 1812. 

3. Francis Burwell, 5 of Clarke County: Born August 23, 1815T 
One of Bishop Meade's sons, Rev. R. K. Meade, and four of his grand- 
sons—Rev. W. H. Meade, D.D., of Philadelphia, Rev. F. A. Meade, of 
West Virginia, Rev. Everard Meade, of Virginia, and Rev. P.N. Meade, 
of Maryland — are in the ministry, and a fifth grandson is a candidate 
for orders. 

I am indebted to the Rev. Dr. Walker, of the Theo- 
logical Seminary, for the following list of Bishop Meade's 
writings. 

1. Second Annual Report of the Bible Society of Frederick 
County, Virginia. Printed by order of the Society. Win- 
chester : 1815. 

2. Sermon at the Opening of the Virginia Convention, at 
Winchester, May 20, 1818. 

3. A Sermon on the Death of the Rev. Oliver Norris. 
Preached in Christ Church, Alexandria, September 18, 1825. 

4. Sermon on the Death of the Rev. John Dunn, Rector of 
Shelbourne parish* Loudoun County. Published in the Theo- 
logical Repertory. 

5. Sermon delivered in the Rotunda of the University of 
Virginia, on Sunday, May 24, 1829, on the occasion of the 
death of nine young men, who fell victims to the diseases 
which visited that place during the summer of 1828, and the 
following winter. 

6. A Sermon at the Opening of the Convention of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in Petersburg, May 15, 1828. 

7. A Sermon on Confirmation. Preached in Winchester, 
December 12, 1834. 

8. Pastoral Letter on the duty of affording religious in- 
struction to those in bondage. Alexandria : 1839. 



53 

9. Sermons, Dialogues, and Narratives for Servants. To be 
read to them in families, abridged, altered, and adapted to their 
condition chiefly. Richmond : 1834. 

10. Sermon (Connected with the Temperance Cause). 
Preached before the Convention in Staunton, May, 1834. Pub- 
lished by request of the same. Richmond : 1835. 

11. Sermon preached at the Opening of the General Con- 
vention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, 
September 5, 1838. 

12. Sermon to the Students of the Theological Seminary 
near Alexandria. Published by their request. Washington : 
1839. 

13. The Wisdom, Moderation, and Charity of the English 
Reformers, and Fathers of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
the United States. A sermon preached before the Students of 
the Theological Seminary of the Diocese of Virginia, February 
5, 1840. Washington. 

14. Sermon before the Students of the High School, in the 
Prayer Hall of the Theological Seminary, February 16, 1840. 

15. Ditto. October 3, 1840. 

16. Sermon delivered at the Consecration of the Right Rev. 
Stephen Elliott, D.D., for the Diocese of Georgia, in Christ 
Church, Savannah. With an appendix on the rule of Faith ; 
in which the opinions of the Oxford Divines, and others agree- 
ing with them, are considered, and some of the consequences 
thereof set forth. Washington : 1841. 

17. Life of the Rev. Devereux Jarratt. By himself. 
Abridged by Bishop Meade. With a sermon of Mr. Jarratt's 
on Justification. 

18. Family Prayers. Collected from the Sacred Scriptures, 
the Book of Common Prayer, and the works of Bishop Wilson. 
1834. 

19. Religious Education of Children. 

20. The Law of Proportion in the Church of God, considered 
in a Pastoral Address. 1843. 

21. The Doctrines of the Episcopal Church not Romish. 
An Address to the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, Lynchburg, May 16, 1844. 

22. A Tract on the Ministry. For the Episcopal Tract 
Society of Virginia. An answer to the question, " What does 
the Protestant Episcopal Church believe and set forth concern- 



54 

ing the ministry ? " Extracted from the Book of Common 
Prayer, the writings of the Rev. William Goode, and the Rev. 
George Stanley Faber. 
. 23. A Tract for the Times. 

24. A Brief Review of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, 
from its establishment to the present time ; being part of an 
address to the Convention in Fredericksburg, May 22, 1845. 

25. Tract on Industry. Being one of the Homilies, with a 
sermon on the same subject (preached and published in 1838). 
Alexandria: 1845. 

26. Two Letters to the Board of Managers and Executive 
Committee of the Protestant Episcopal Sunday School Union. 
1847. 

27. Pastoral Letter of the House of Bishops. 1847. 

28. Address to the Episcopalians of Western Virginia, on the 
proposition to divide the Diocese, etc. 1851. 

29. Wilberforce, Cranmer, Jewett, and the Prayer Book on 
the Incarnation. 1850. 

30. Letters to a Mother, on the birth of a child, etc. 1849. 

31. Explanation of the Church Catechism. Chiefly from 
the Catechism by the Rev. James Stillingfleet, Jr., with an 
Appendix. 1849. 

32. Review of a Work entitled " The Doctrine of the Church 
of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the Case of Infants. " 
With an Appendix. 1849. 

33. Ecclesiastical Law and Discipline. A charge to the 
Clergy of Virginia. 1850. 

34. Remarks on a Pamphlet concerning a Canon on Lay 
Discipline. Passed at the Convention recently held in Alex- 
andria. 1850. 

35. Companion of the Font and Pulpit. 1846. 

36. Pastoral Letter to the Congregations of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church of Virginia. 1847. 

37. Statement in Reply to Some Parts of " Bishop Onder- 
donk's Statement of Facts connected with his Trial." 1845. 

38. Reasons for Loving the Episcopal Church. 1852. 

39. A Counter-Statement of the Case of Bishop H. U. Onder- 
donk, in reply to one signed " A Member of the Church." 1854. 

40. Pastoral Letter on Schools and Teaching. 1858. 

41. Pastoral to Laity of the Episcopal Church in Virginia. 
(Without date.) 



55 

42. Sermon on the Opening of the Convention of the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church in Virginia, in the fifty-first year of 
his ministry and the thirty-second of his Episcopate. Published 
by order of the Convention. 1861. 

43. Lecture on the Pastoral Office, delivered to the Stu- 
dents, etc. 1849. 

44. Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia. 
1857. 

45. The Bible and the Classics. 1861. 

46. Address on the Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer. 
June 13, 1861. 



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